Spinning to High Heaven by Jan Ireland

Spinning to High Heaven

By Jan Ireland

November 24, 2003

Spin is a word that used to have to do with a top. The strongest workout it got was from a child who wanted to make the top more exciting by blending its colors with speed. Somewhere along the way it became restating, where janitors were euphemistically called sanitation engineers. Now it has become a deft weapon to be used against the innocent. The Eleventh Circuit Court was spinning to high heaven recently, when it fired Justice Roy Moore for supposedly placing himself 'above the law' with his Ten Commandments monument.

In what might make even atheists wonder about Deity attention, Justice Moore's firing came on the same day the Fifth Circuit Court upheld the presence of a Ten Commandments display at the Texas state capitol. Had Justice Moore lived in Texas, Mississippi, or Louisiana - he would still have a job. Those are the states in which the Fifth Circuit decisions are binding. An accident of geography took a piece of freedom from America.

While the Fifth Circuit ruling is welcome and reassuring, the Eleventh's conclusion portends a still-growing problem. Much of the media in our country will focus only on the Eleventh's decision to fire Justice Moore, and will once again begin an erroneous round of 'separation of church and state' pronouncements.

There is no 'separation of church and state' in the Constitution. That phrase came to us from Thomas Jefferson, rightly revered for his contributions to our founding. But it came from a letter he wrote to a religious group - a full decade after the Bill of Rights were ratified. The NEA's lopsided curriculum strikes again.

Judicial decisions that gave rise to this separation of church and state myth, apparently relied on that phrase. But that would be tantamount to suggesting that Thomas Jefferson meant to unilaterally change the Constitution, with that one phrase. On his own. Without consulting anyone else. Ludicrous.

Very specific and stringent rules were put directly into the Constitution, detailing the only ways and reasons it could be changed. Only an ignorance of history could suggest that this now malapropos phrase was meant to remove every hint of religious reference from this nation. Ignorance of history…or deliberate, malevolent spinning.

We have been conditioned over the years to accept judicial rulings as almost omniscient. Somehow the 'one of three' branches has metamorphosed itself to 'the' law; the final say; the 'trump' so to speak. But it is still actually only one of three coequal branches. As the Constitution intended.

Marxists, socialists, and liberals want you to continue to believe that you must accept anything a court says. Marxists, to do away with God and so control man. Socialists, to make the state the giver of all things, and so perpetuate itself. Liberals, to have no limits on their desires, and so be in power. Witness the continuing attempt to divide all groups of Americans through political correctness and labels; the eternally evolving 'need' for more laws; the desperate unconstitutional ban of even a vote on conservative or religious judicial nominees.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans signed petitions in support of Justice Moore. Would everyone else in America please go out and read the Constitution.

Jan Ireland has a BA in English, masters in counseling, and advanced training as a certificated teacher. She is a Guest Writer at Opinion Editorials, and a Contributor to Renew America.